It was my first time out of the house since Sunday, when I went to the hospital to get looked at, and aside from that hospital visit, I hadn’t left the house since Friday night. I’m not contagious anymore, the flu isn’t in me anymore, but my lungs are absolutely shredded. Speaking for ten seconds winds me, and walking even short distances does the same.

My lungs will heal, they’ve done so in the past and they’ll do so in the future. I got a call from a friend who works in a board game shop down the road, called and told me to come get my imports, and I figured I would say hi and spend some time struggling to breathe there in the store.

As I had left, I was taken aback by this dark indigo swipe of paint across a just slightly brighter sky. Sometimes I regret not bringing my formal photography kit out to buy stuff at board game stores when I’m gasping for air, and those regrets were founded here.

It was gorgeous and lovely, and the urban cancer called Tualatin-Valley Highway was taking up the bottom forty percent of what I wanted to shoot. I had to get creative a bit. With a bit of experimentation, I turned the exposure way down, and shot it at a simulated 48mm. Even with the foreground and the disparate noise, all the colors in the frame harmonize around a theme. I touched it up a bit more at home, dimmed the street lights a bit more, made something that accurately reflected what I saw, capturing the beauty of that moment.

Thanks for seeing my work!